Airdrops have been a fan-favorite in the cryptocurrency ecosystem for years because they offer projects a way to reward early adopters and increase token distribution. The latest project to surprise its community of supporters with retroactive rewards for its newly minted token is dYdX, a non-custodial decentralized derivatives exchange that operates on a layer-two version of the Ethereum network. Data from CoinGecko shows that on its first day of trading live in the markets, DYDX is trading at a price of $10.28 at the time of writing after hitting an intra-day high at $14.24. The number of tokens received by …

Crypto derivatives platform Delta Exchange announced Wednesday that it has launched futures trading on Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA), giving investors a new access point to the leading altcoins. The initial rollout of SOL and ADA call and put options will have daily maturities, with weekly and monthly maturities to be made available at a later date. Options give owners the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a security at a specific price within a certain time window. Call and put options are used heavily in traditional markets but have become more prevalent within crypto. Delta Exchange …

Bitcoin (BTC) failed to break the critical $50,000 psychological barrier on Aug. 23 and has since then retested the $47,000 support. If historical data plays any role in Bitcoin price, the month of September presented negative performances in 4 of the previous 5 years. Cointelegraph contributor and market analyst Michaël van de Poppe recently said that Ether's (ETH) break above $3,500 could be a leading indicator for Bitcoin's next bull run, and now that Ether trades at $3,700, traders anxiously await BTC's next move. Bulls could be excited for El Salvador's Bitcoin Law, which is scheduled to take effect on …

Real-world adoption and brand awareness are one of the best ways for a blockchain project to increase its value and attract new users to its ecosystem. One project that has seen massive growth throughout 2021 thanks to its increasing public exposure and exciting protocol launches and partnerships is FTX, a crypto derivatives trading platform founded by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low near $50 on Tuesday, the price of FTT catapulted 42% to a new all-time high of $66.50 on Wednesday as its 24-hour trading volume increased by …

FTX.US, the United States-based affiliate of Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is acquiring crypto derivatives platform LedgerX for an undisclosed amount. FTX.US’ owner, West Realm Shire Services, announced on Tuesday that the company had executed a sale-and-purchase agreement to acquire LedgerX’s parent company, Ledger Holdings. The deal is expected to close, pending satisfaction of customary closing conditions, the firm noted. LedgerX is a digital currency futures and options exchange regulated under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Swap Execution Facility and Derivatives Clearing Organization. The platform is available for retail and institutional investors, allowing them to trade cryptocurrency futures with the …

Very few events can shake the cryptocurrency markets in a sustainable manner that really sends Bitcoin and altcoin prices into a sharp directional move. One example is when Xi Jinping, China's President, called for a country-wide development of blockchain technology in October 2019. The unexpected news caused a 42% pump in Bitcoin (BTC), but the movement completely faded away as investors realized China was not altering its negative stance on cryptocurrencies. As a result, only a handful of tokens focused on China's FinTech industry, blockchain tracing, and industry automation saw their prices consolidate at higher levels. Some 'crypto news' and …

Whenever there's data out on futures contracts liquidation, many novice investors and analysts instinctively conclude that it's degenerate gamblers using high leverage or other risky instruments. There's no doubt that some derivatives exchanges are known for incentivizing retail trading to use excessive leverage, but that does not account for the entire derivatives market. Recently, concerned investors such as Nithin Kamath, the founder and CEO at Zerodha, questioned how derivatives exchanges could handle extreme volatility while offering 100x leverage. When a platform offers leverage or funds the customer to buy for more than the money in the account, the platform takes …

Bitcoin (BTC) price is still 4.4% down from its Aug. 23 high at $50,500, leading some traders to question whether the local top marked the end of the recent 34-day long bull run. Even with the current correction, derivatives data and the maneuvers of professional investors are not flashing any bearish signals. On Aug. 24, prominent technical analyst John Bollinger suggested that Bitcoin price could be pushed lower in the short term. A pseudonymous market analyst called 'CryptoHamster' shared a similar bearish outlook based on analyzing a technical pattern called an ascending channel. Bearish news coming from exchange regulation could …

Chainlink is the leading oracle provider, and the project has onboarded over 281 crypto projects in 2021. Some of these include heavyweights, like Huobi's ECO Chain, the Hedera Governing Council and Alchemix. Launched in October 2020, Chainlink's verifiable randomness function, or VRF, has also gained notoriety among decentralized applications (DApps). VRF provides an automated source of randomness to ensure that prizes and rewards are issued in a verifiably fair fashion. For example, on Aug. 13, Arbitrum — a layer-two Ethereum scaling solution — launched a beta mainnet service integrated with Chainlink's oracle data feed and intends to add a "Proof …

Ether (ETH) will face a critical $820 million monthly options expiry on Friday, Aug. 27. That will be the first time that $3,000 and higher options will have a real fighting chance, even though bulls seem to have missed a good opportunity to dominate the expiry because they were too optimistic about Ether’s price potential. It is unclear why $140 million of the neutral-to-bullish call options were placed between $3,800 and $8,000, but these instruments will likely become worthless as the monthly expiry approaches. Competition and the success of interoperability-focused protocols impact Ether price The Ethereum network has struggled due …

Ether’s (ETH) price rallied 32% leading up to Monday, and despite testing the $3,000 support multiple times, the level has held firmly. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) could not sustain the $50,000 mark, at least in the short term. According to Cointelegraph, pro traders are not yet inclined to add bullish positions according to derivatives metrics. Surprisingly, the opposite situation emerges when looking at the sentiment of Ether traders who currently show a reasonable degree of confidence in the current price level. Regulatory pressure and spectacular NFT growth back traders’ confidence in Ether On Monday, Dawn Stump, a commissioner at the Commodity …

$2 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) options will expire on Friday, Aug. 27. Some analysts argue that a strong call (buy) option buying activity on Sunday was likely the catalyst for the recent $50,000 price test. Digital asset trading firm QCP Capital mentioned in its market update that an entity has been “consistently pushing (option) prices higher in the last few weeks.” The activity, which took place during the morning trading session in Asia, aggressively bought bullish options in chunks of 100-BTC contracts each. The report also mentions the exhaustion of regulatory concerns in the near term, as crypto-related decisions …